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Skift Take
If Sabre sells its hospitality unit this time around, it can use some of the proceeds to pay off debt, and then refocus on its core airline and travel agency business.
Sabre’s hotel tech unit is up for sale two years after a similar effort failed to yield a deal, according to an industry source. Evercore is running the sales process, the source said.
Private equity firms are expected to be among the potential buyers.
Sabre declined to confirm or deny that a sales process was underway. “We do not comment on market rumors or speculation,” a spokesperson said Thursday. “As always, we are focused on building and running a strong business.”
Sabre Hospitality swung back to profitability in the second quarter, with an operating income of $5.3 million compared with an operating loss of $2 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 9% to $83 million.
Hyatt Was a Significant Win
The biggest recent win for Sabre Hospitality was an agreement with Hyatt to use Sabre’s Synxis central reservation system as its main CRS.
“You can expect to see Hyatt come on through 2024,” Sabre CEO Kurt Ekert said in August during an earnings call. “When you step back and look at the HS [Hospitality Solutions] business overall, what we’ve articulated before, this is another proof point to that, which is that you’re going to see double-digit revenue growth in HS this year and beyond. You’ll see HS achieve double-digit margin production by the end of next year.”
The hospitality unit uses a SaaS model that helps independent hotels and chains manage pricing and reservations, and also enables hoteliers to distribute their rates and availability through various distribution channels. Some of its solutions are hosted, as well.
Sabre Hospitality is a small part of Sabre, whose primary business is helping airlines distribute their flights and ancillaries to travel agencies, online and offline, and providing airlines with tech solutions to run their operations. Sabre Hospitality’s revenue is just 10.8% of the company’s total revenue.
At the end of 2023, 42,000 properties in 175 countries used Sabre Hospitality’s services.
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